Vagrant Fragrance
by Alliriyan
Summary: The temporary alliance between the camellia and the blade lead to a feeling she could never quite name. As Tsubaki and Mifune infiltrate and eliminate a kishin mafia, many hearts will stop, yet two might start to beat. God Eater tie-in. 2ND PLACE in FCFA
1. The First Day

As a weapon he had placed her within his box sheath, a tant­o hidden in the crowd of katanas. Just like any other sword he had thrown her into the sky to land blade first in the earth, standing alone, independent, like any other.

Independence was a phenomenon few Weapons ever experienced in combat. Those few moments standing unaided and poised for battle had reminded her of the duel against her brother. Memories that she held preciously deep in her heart of a time when the silent, scentless camellia had struck out and roared. A time when she had shown Masamune who she truly was, a powerful and strong-willed adult, and he had finally agreed.

She honestly wanted to relive that feeling. Life under the constant judgement of her peers and superiors, questioning her and damning her for the obnoxious, egotistic, clashing personality of her meister; it had all served to drain her of energy and confidence. None of them seemed to realise that partnering with Black Star was a freely-made decision that she stood by with pride. That she admired him because she wanted to be capable and worthy of the same high recognition, whether self-proclaimed or no.

With such thoughts as these in mind, the Nakatsukasa heir decimated three of their opponents before her temporary comrade even lifted her in his hand. And once they joined forces, the pair moved with such speed, dexterity and skill that the rest of the enemies were destroyed in a matter of minutes.

Tsubaki returned to human form, still in his grip, hilt still clasped in his dry, whispery hands. When the yellow light of her soul altering her shape died down; her body was just against his, gently touching his torso within the circle of his arms. Her eyelids were half-closed, relaxed, she breathed in the muted scent of his skin whilst reminding herself that she was named for a flower without fragrance. She made no move to kiss or embrace him, nor to press in closer; just with that barely-meeting of their bodies asserted that her maturity had developed beyond the faltering false-passes of adolescents.

Mifune seemed to realise that she was experiencing some manner of important contemplation, doing nothing to break the hushed tension of that moment until she sighed deeply in fulfilment and stepped gracefully out of his unresisting embrace.

"No Soul Resonance?"

"Why would I Resonate with you?" She put the question with a small smile. "I'm not trying to kill anyone right now."

Somehow the blunt depiction of the purpose of Soul Resonance failed to jar either of them. Mifune had read the tranquillity and clarity in her eyes and somehow adopted it himself even after many years of a mercenary existence. What a sweet gift to give, somehow. It occurred to him that the young woman might have a soul as strong as his own was rumoured to be, yet assuredly purer.

That was the first day.


	2. The Second Night

**Vagrant Fragrance 02**

"Him," murmured Mifune, flicking his eyes in the direction of a slim, well-groomed man who stood half in the shadows with a flute of champagne raised elegantly to his lips and an intense, calculating stare with which he raked the room. Several seconds after the swordsman's prompt, Tsubaki admired the opulent decorations scattered all around with a tiny half-smile.

"I see him," she replied, as if commenting on the flower arrangements.

He swept a stray strand of pale sandy hair out of his eyes and lowered his voice, yet not to a suspicious degree. "He is the most key of our colleagues invited here tonight." And by 'colleague' he meant 'target'. "Ricardo Gavena has the ability to see souls, in addition to being extremely powerful. He alone supplies all of the souls consumed at these little gatherings. Whether they are scavenged or freshly harvested I don't know, but he's very talented. You should try to meet him, if you can."

Tsubaki took a larger gulp of her drink than perhaps she should have, because she'd just been informed that she alone was responsible for shuffling Gavena off his mortal coil, preferably without alerting the two major gangs hosting the event to the presence of betrayers and saboteurs in their midst. Subtlety was especially important seeing as the party was strictly no-weapons-allowed, with crowds of ferocious bouncers taking great care to enforce that rule.

Enter Tsubaki, the human that could turn into no less than five unique instruments of death, all without setting off a single metal detector when entering the building. This was the real reason behind the ninja and the samurai's new partnership.

An assassination in the heart of enemy territory.

In full view of every major mafia member this city could offer.

Every one of whom had started along the path to insanity and demonhood via the pure souls now curdling in their bellies.

And not a single blade or bullet to be found in all of the rendezvous's six hundred metre radius.

Mifune offered her his hand, a small curl of amusement flirting with his lips.

"Would you care to dance?"

**~;~**

Tsubaki appeared noiselessly behind Gavena, the primary ninja precepts her silent mantra. Creeping forwards on soft feet, her clicking high heels left behind a drape somewhere; she seemed to cease breathing in her quest to go unnoticed. When the man, kishin, whatever he might be, was in arm's reach, she stroked a hand through her hair and coiled a thick lock of it in one palm. With a muted flash of buttercup light, it morphed into a long silver chain, hanging from which was a wickedly sharp, talon-curved blade. The links chinked, mimicking the chime of wineglasses raised in toasts, and drew no attention.

"Be very, very careful," her escort had warned as they danced maladroitly in a corner of the ballroom. "He's powerful, but more than that, he has no control over his power."

That is why he stands poised so carefully, and gives off an air of delicacy. Because if he moves too suddenly, the things around him will shatter. Each time he sips from the champagne, he risks a mouthful of glass shards. Every step he takes could crack the teak floor.

"Gavena would break your bones just by brushing past you. By accepting this target, you're moving into incredible danger. If you feel you cannot handle the task, just say, and don't gamble your life." Apprehension exaggerated her youth in his vision; he tried to quell the sudden urge to protect her.

She undertook some soul-searching before giving her nod of assent or quick shake of denial. The soul she searched for, within her own, was the majestic monotone-rippled stag that symbolised the spirit of her brother. "Masamune," she whispered across the sweet, still waters of her inner landscape. "Brother, please help me."

The beautiful, black and white beast lowered its muzzle in a stately bow. But gaining his assistance was not as easy as simply asking for it.

"You have already stolen the zero form from me, Tsubaki." The first soul she'd ever swallowed stated coldly. "And you have consumed my very essence. There is nothing more to take; nothing left that I can give you."

She slowly drew nearer and closer, until she could reach out and embrace her sibling if she so wished. There once again: at this almost-there, going nowhere point. Just like yesterday, when Mifune had tempted her so far yet no further. Despite her efforts towards emancipation, her striving to take the final step towards the freedom that her meister possessed in infinite amounts without embarrassment or self-doubt; she remained frozen at that impasse point. One step away from liberty of behaviour and emotion. One step back to shyness, insecurity, inability, and the constant thorn in her side of being hyperconscious of the judgements of others. To the silence of the scentless camellia. "I need to kill a man who could break my hands just by my touching him. I need to perfectly immobilise him, however I cannot stab him as the dark blade on my own. I need you to join with me in a synchronised attack."

The eyes of the deer regarded her for a long time, yet never hinted at the nature of the thoughts stirring in the empty space behind. One the bright white moon; one its other, eternally dark hemisphere.

Masamune made his decision. And took the final step that Tsubaki never could, straight into her open arms. They closed tightly, trapping him.

"I missed...all the time, I missed you. I never thought the forms were worth more than my family." It was a harsh rebuke disguised as a loving greeting. But in the end, it was always an apology; sobbed through drops of salt that were too timid to fall. "If you hadn't become a kishin, I swear, I would never have done this to you. Not for the katana form, not for my own life, not for anything."

A heavy, inhuman head hooked over her small shoulder and rested its chin against her back. Masamune nudged her nearer, burying her in his zebra-striped fur. Finally, he told her a secret.

"I'm sorry...for forcing your hand, Tsubaki."

**~;~**

She wondered if Black Star would ever be able to do this. Wait patiently behind a mark, breathing down his neck, kusarigama inches from its victim's throat…and all the while the man is sipping and staring in the wrong direction, thinking himself so vigilant.

Although no words were spoken, she heard them in her mind as Masamune filtered into her being and activated a shadow ability that left his sister almost blinded with pain. Soul Possession performed by a kishin's egg she had already absorbed, aimed through her own body at a grossly overpowered opponent; was a tactic she should have known better than to attempt. It was excruciating, only made worse by the imperative that she remain silent, hidden, and her target unaware.

Ricardo Gavena shuddered for a single second. Grey vines slithered through his skin, across his eyes; obscured his sight. Suddenly he found himself unable to hear, move, or sense; forced into a state of such serenity he was left completely powerless. His blood-red essence drifted into a deep sleep, never realising that those soul-exposing scans of the grand hall – so densely crowded with lowlifes that it became a sea of metaphysical fairy lights in his vision – would be the last scenes he ever saw in life.

Succumbed, cocooned in invisible shadow puppets; the supplier of the worst kinds of drugs walked calmly behind the velvet curtains and paid for his propagation of insanity and fear with his life. Tsubaki looped steel chains around his smart white collar, pulled her metal hair tight like a homicidal Rapunzel. The Nakatsukasa siblings did what they were born to do in flawless unison, and garrotted the kishin until the final breath gurgled from his lungs.

**~;~**

Tsubaki returned to him ghost-pale, shivering and faint. Mifune let her lean against him in an unhealthy imitation of a slow dance – luckily the music playing at that moment suited. For the rest of the night the girl could barely support her own weight, ravaged by the side-effects of her elder brother's aid.

But the swordsman was awed despite her sorry condition, because for all that she had gone after a man capable of cracking diamonds with a flick of his little finger; and come back victorious without the faintest bruise.

He held her tight, one cheek resting against her hair, both infiltrators managing to look content even as she struggled to stay on her feet.

In the centre of the mob's mockery and parody of the secret policeman's ball…no one had noticed the assassination of the guest of honour.

That was the second night.


	3. The Third Evening

**Vagrant Fragrance 03**

"Partners," declared the ringleader magnanimously, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of welcome. "It's time to get down to business. I hope the next year will be even more successful than the last."

It was a joke, and Mifune ignored it as such. The majority of the mobsters in the grandiose conference hall detested sharing their profits and secrets, making the term of address 'partners' a laughable concept. Any business conducted in so large a crowd would be too trivial to bear repeating, unless there was some high-stake heist on the cards and everyone was invited. And those kinds of heists were only ever undertaken as a decoy to an altogether different crime, one where it didn't matter how many pawns were discarded in its execution.

Beside him Tsubaki was trying hard not to fidget with her slinky evening dress that she was wearing for only the second time, or sip too often at her glass of unnamed alcohol as her nerves fluttered, or stare too obviously at the well-dressed, vicious and arrogant gangsters she felt completely out of place among. Yesterday she'd been able to hide in front of Mifune for the majority of the evening but now she was pinned to a chair, social butterfly in an exhibit, out in the open where the hardened criminals could see her naivety.

He gave her a warning glance, without kindness.

A kind gesture now would ruin them.

~;~

Their host placed his brawny hands upon the table and leaned forwards, flicking sly and knowing glances from side to side. He bared his large, sharp teeth in an intimidating grin. "We're all aware," he purred in a falsely-jovial growl; "of the real reason anyone turned up to this crooks' shindig. It's dangerous enough living the lives we do, without flaunting ourselves in the lap of luxury. But hey, you gotta taste the spice a little, right?"

A few members of the audience muttered in agreement or dissent.

"That's why we hired the infamous Soul-Snatcher, our good ol' mate Ricardo Gavena – " Mifune counted three cheers and one cat-call, mentally noting the sources for future reference. They were likely to have borrowed Gavena's services more than the average member of these fledgling kishin mafias. " – to cater for us today."

There was silence as the focus of the entire hall zeroed in on the speaker.

In the hush, one of the bouncers arranged in a semicircle of pure muscle power behind the head table coughed nervously; and in so doing signed his life away. His employer turned round slightly.

"What?" drawled the man slowly.

"Boss, uh, sir; we…one of the crew found Mr Gavena behind the drapes."

"Drunk?"

"Dead." It was said bleakly.

"Well that doesn't matter," snorted the superior carelessly, though it was painfully obvious that none of his guests agreed as the noise level returned to a loud buzz coloured with suspicion. "What about the souls he brought for the feast? You find them?"

"No sir, they've been moved and we haven't managed to recover them yet." He swallowed, shifting his weight from leg to leg. "…We've looked nearly everywhere, sir…" In the distance, Mifune and Tsubaki feigned disgruntled looks at each other as though dissatisfied with a waiter's performance; anything that would obscure the expressions of guilt lurking beneath. Let someone else take the fall.

The mafia don advanced, looming over even the height of the bodyguard with a mad red gleam in his eyes. "I can't eat souls that aren't there, can I?"

A meaty fist shot out and clamped onto the freaked-out man's shoulder, accompanied by the pop of a dislocating arm. The bouncer paled and groaned. "I can't eat Ricardo's dead body, can I; he's no use to me!"

The criminal's maw filled the vision of the hired muscle, grin stretching impossibly wide as the kishin soul took over and human biology took a backseat. "But I'm still hungry, flunky;" he laughed, hyena-laughed, and bit.

There was a collective shudder throughout the building.

"That's our cue to leave," hissed Mifune; and Tsubaki leapt up to follow him, dropping her drink to smash on the table, knocking over her chair like many others and staggering away from the kishin. More than a few of their fellow captives – in the moment of realising all doors were heavily locked to protect the mob's confidentiality, they had become jailbirds – were pulling discreet yet deadly weapons from their ties and belts and polished boots, slipped in past security. The pale-haired swordsman gripped his own tightly, pulling her across the vast, panicking room by the wrist until they found a veiled alcove to hide in.

Mifune stooped, ducking under the burgundy velvet and dragging it closed behind Tsubaki after her back slammed against his chest in the tiny void. And there they huddled, gasping for breath; hearing the cacophony of chaos outside with no clue as to how long it would continue for.

Although neither could see what was ensuing in the grand hall anymore, no questions were voiced.

Both understood that carnage had begun.

~;~

Horrendous cracking and guzzling noises echoed from behind the pillar that concealed and protected them, the _splatch_ of blood splattering the floor in instantly copious amounts was almost constant. Acutely high tension made it difficult to tell how much time had passed; whether the fighting was fast and over in minutes, or the savagery extended to hours.

Somewhen, Tsubaki heaved a long, heavy sigh and Mifune felt her head loll to one side mournfully. In the darkness he gave a slight frown, and raised one hand to support her waist. Her breathing changed minutely.

"Are you alright, Tsubaki?" he whispered, breath tickling her ear in concern. She sighed again; he felt the swell and release of air push her into his torso. Perhaps the loud and unnatural sounds of gore were making her feel nauseous.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, a little hasty. "Just…"

He laid a second sympathetic hand against her back. The girl bit her lip, feeling very warm as a blush flooded her. Though whether that was the fault of her embarrassingly selfish thoughts or Mifune's touch was anyone's guess.

"There were a lot of kishin eggs out there, weren't there…" she began, in a light, conversational tone.

"The vast majority," he replied, words clipped and quiet.

Trying not to sound like she was hinting too heavily, Tsubaki continued. "It's…almost a shame, that you couldn't bring your box scabbard with all your swords."

"We certainly wouldn't be forced to hide in here if I had." He would have folded his arms to portray his rather dire mood, except they were currently cradling a unique and curvilinear young woman; whose soft demeanour hid a steely core that had deeply impressed him. Such opportunities were rare, especially in the isolated life of a sword-for-hire. "However, neither would we have been allowed in."

She picked at her short, hard-working fingernails in the pitch black. "Seventy-odd evil souls," mumbled the Weapon timidly; "that's a long way to being a Deathscythe." A third sigh whistled out of her mouth, a forlorn tumbleweed of air.

Mifune blinked. He had thought she'd been feeling ill.

"Forgive me," he retorted, speaking mostly out of shock. "If you wanted to gather them all, you should have said. With only a tanto I didn't believe it was worth the risk. Armed with a katana, I _would_ be confident in attacking a full mob of demons on my own!"

The frantic apology died on her lips, and by the time his talking ceased it had been reborn as a frosted statement dripping icy stalactites of finality.

"There is only one person in this world who has earned the right to wield Masamune."

Silence gathered once again in the tiny alcove, as the warrior and the blade pointedly looked in opposite directions; although the impact was lost in their blindness.

The man cleared his throat softly. "But doesn't everyone say you're wasted on him?" Mifune didn't mean to be rude. It was just beyond his comprehension why Tsubaki willingly fought by the side of the retard of subtlety, Black Star.

"We've already defeated you twice, haven't we?" she replied, a little archly, a little tartly; her voice a challenge that would be backed up.

Her companion said nothing in defence, just waited. Sounds of a one-sided battle still raged unabated. The hand that had been resting on her back slipped lower of its own accord, drifting to her hip as its owner took advantage of the lull in their verbal exchange to concentrate on what was happening between the kishins warring scant metres from their lair. The movement reminded Tsubaki of how little personal space there had been between them over the course of the last three days, and another heated blush overtook her. Before there had been tasks, distractions that drew her attention away from the man himself; yet in such a tiny space there was little to divert her awareness from the places where their bodies touched. It wasn't in her nature to press an issue, but she offered a further rejoinder to him, just to mar the emptiness.

"Wouldn't I be far more wasted on a meister who could only use a single one of my forms?"

"That, I will admit, is true. I won't ask again."

They stood stiffly side by side, caught awkwardly in semi-poses of intimacy and irritation. Both were skilled fighters, and winners; neither had anything to prove to the other. And it was this that bewildered the two of them – how to cross a gauntlet suspiciously free of obstacles, creep under the skin of a former nemesis and steal a place in that person's heart.

The source of their miniature conflict reminded Mifune of the sole enquiry he'd ever dreamed of asking a Demon Weapon, prior to meeting this one. "What does it feel like?" he questioned at an intent pitch; "To be a sword?"

His arms tightened round her waist, as if he was planning to snatch her away from her blue-haired boy more than he had already. Tsubaki's mind short-circuited for a split second at the contact. Blinking several times, she wondered what had just happened before giving her answer. She swivelled round to face him properly even if he couldn't see her face in the dark. "I think...you must already know..." answered the dread blade sincerely to a samurai who had mastered the katana.

Formerly supportive arms turned into a close embrace, pressing them together.

She could hear his heart beating in the dusty quiet. Everything else already half-forgotten, he drew her higher and closer. Her eyelashes flickered against his cheek, convincing him that she was delicate and fragile despite knowing he would be stabbing her into their enemies; forming mortal wounds with her razor-edges before too long.

She breathed a sudden realisation against his lips, each word almost a kiss. "The fighting's stopped."

The unexpected glare of her transformation blinded him.

The handle of a tanto fell comfortably into his palm.

"Let's go," whispered Tsubaki in the back of his mind.

~;~

The opulent hall was filled with nothing but blood, glass, and the rumble of demented laughter. Remnants of perhaps three or four people were strewn and painted across the room, the rest having evaporated the moment their warped souls were exposed and imbibed.

Their host was hulking by the huge, sturdy double doors that had prevented an entire horde of mad mob-members from escaping a wretched fate. He dwarfed the stately portal now, bloated by a feast of devils' eggs. It wasn't unheard of for a kishin to have cannibalistic tendencies alongside its habitual horrific diet of mostly-innocent human souls, yet neither was it common.

So Mifune treaded softly as he slipped out of the alcove he'd gambled their life on, and spent several seconds gauging the new strength and movements of his target.

"He won't be able to assume human form again," noted Tsubaki. He heard her words without voice, as if her thoughts travelled directly into his mind through their tenuous bond as tool and technician. "He's too far gone. So many competing wavelengths probably mangled his own beyond repair."

The demonic mafia don began to batter and rattle at the doors; the key in his tuxedo pocket forgotten during bloodlust, unaware of the predator stalking him from behind. Mifune breathed deeply, filling himself with energy for the coming attack. He raised the long, straight-edged dagger to just below shoulder height, arms crossed; compensating for the loss of a katana's length and subtly curved blade that gave perfect cut, with a stance designed to unleash a great deal more brute power and flexibility.

He relaxed.

The kishin was suddenly behind him, swinging one sledgehammer fist in the air that would crack a skull like an egg if it was permitted to connect. Blurred by speed, Mifune whirled round and struck out at snake-strike velocity; a wide-open slash opened in the monster's chest. Darting away and sprinting back into the fray on a slant, he unleashed another unstoppable spinning slash that sheared the spine of the abomination in half. One deadly fist pounded countless fissures into the teak parquet flooring, quickly followed by the rest of the body.

Its trembling head craned back and bared hyena jaws in retaliation. "It's just flesh wounds," growled the thug ominously; "and flesh don't matter to me anymore!" Gritting his terrifying teeth, steam began to pour out of his gashes in the cruellest shade of red. And it was true. Physical form meant nothing before the drive of an insane soul. Pain was an afterthought to a beast drunk on psychosis.

"Mind over matter," clarified Tsubaki, not that her meister required such explanations. Mifune slammed her point-first into the base of the kishin's cranium, angled for maximum damage. The demon shuddered at his feet, fell still, and crumbled into nothing.

"Then kill the mind," he replied bluntly, after the fact.

~;~

The first thing Tsubaki did upon returning to her human form was to pick up the nearest surviving bottle of wine and down it without decorum. Mifune raised a pale eyebrow at her. It seemed ironic for a Weapon to experience a bad reaction after a killing.

"So would you if you'd just had someone's brains on you;" was the morbid answer to his silent question. Soon feeling the glow of alcohol in her belly, she surveyed the damage to the hall. "Should we clear this up?"

"The owners knew who they were renting to," said Mifune dismissively. "That fight ended very quickly…" he added.

"Between a ninja and samurai, it's to be expected…" agreed his partner absent-mindedly.

"I'm sorry that you only gained two souls for your trouble," the man continued, moving away to the only buffet table that hadn't been either obliterated or spattered with fresh organic substances.

"I could eat your soul to make up for it," giggled the Demon Weapon as the wine hijacked her logic and reserve. He handed her a gold-rimmed porcelain bowl.

"I'd rather you ate this instead." It was heaped with cake, cream, strawberries and profiteroles. The sole course to weather the massacre untouched had been dessert.

They perched on the end of the long dining table together, eating sweets and drinking champagne, leaning against each other as if watching a glorious sunset rather than celebrating their endurance.

"It's not a very cheery place for a first date," admitted Mifune with a leisurely grin, "but next time-"

He was interrupted by a loud and jarring clang as Tsubaki dropped her fork. She stared at him with something akin to fear in her eyes.

"…A first _what_?"

That was the third evening.

~;~

_I'm going to get down on my knees and beg this time. It took me ten days of hard slog, rewrites, insomnia and much slamming of my head against various objects to write this chapter. Please make it worth the effort by leaving a review, whether it's one word or a full-on flame. Or, you know, positive. XD_

_Thank you,_

_Alliriyan._


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